In the 1970s life expectancy was 72. Today it is 80. In a way it is rather a misleading measure as, of course, it includes infant deaths and those who die young for any number of terrible reasons such as suicide or road deaths.  What means rather more in the debate about when we should retire and be living off a pension is the life expectancy for those of us who have reached 65

The plight of women in their mid-50s who are bearing the brunt of Government plans to save money on the state pension should act as a wake-up call to millions of others. More than 300,000 women will have to wait at least 18 months longer for their state pension under proposals to raise the retirement age to 66 by April 2020.  In fact, this is just the latest in a lifetime of blows that have seen women cast as the poor relations of the pensions system.

Desperate house-buyers face yet another hurdle in the increasingly fraught race to get a decent mortgage. Banks are already under fire for rejecting loan applications from people who have missed the occasional mobile phone bill or failed to cancel a long-forgotten store or credit card. Now there are fears that borrowers in their 40s could soon be told they are too old for the loan they want.

Britons believe old age starts at 59 – nine years earlier than people in other European countries, according to a study. Greeks – who retire in their 50s – regard old age as 68 while the Danes believe those aged 64 and over are old. In France, 63 is considered old. Only in Turkey, where the average life expectancy is 72, do people have a lower estimate of old age, saying it begins at 55.

The scrapping of the Default Retirement Age (DRA) will cause a large increase in the number of age discrimination claims made by employees, a law firm has warned.  The DRA legislation, which allowed companies to make staff retire at 65, was officially abandoned by the Government earlier this month as part of its strategy to deal with the challenges of an ageing workforce.

Sense has prevailed. Early access would have posed a significant risk to undermining retirement savings across the country. The retirement landscape has become increasingly flexible in recent years with changes in legislation making it possible to access 25% of a pension pot as a lump sum from the age of 55 with no income taken, for example.

Of the 11million children in Britain in the age group, 3.3million of them can expect to celebrate their centenary. The statistics were seized on as evidence for increasing the retirement age and reforming pensions.